A Simple Plan
by Nevermore
Summary: Starbuck fic. From the close of Season 2 until about an hour later, what is Starbuck up to? Pure spec, no spoilers.


Battlestar Galactica 2003 is a copyright of the Sci Fi Channel. Battlestar Galactica is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. Ron Moore re-imagined Glen A. Larson's original idea; but then again, most people who would be reading this already know that. My use is in no way intended to challenge or infringe upon any established copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned or any other copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.

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**Author's Note:** When I first wrote this a while back I referred to it as a "blob" drabble. Because hey, on the surface it's just a drabble – short, sweet, mostly to the point. But much like the blob (from the movie of the same name, which I'm sure most people have seen either in its original form or in the 80's remake with Kevin Dillon), this story has the potential to start small and keep growing until it overwhelms everything, including my current fic in progress. And my instincts were right – I'll post a follow-up in the near future.

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**A Simple Plan**  
by  
**Nevermore**

_Fight 'em until we can't._ That simple idea has become Kara's mantra. They were the first words that came to mind when Tyrol asked her what they would do next, a civilian population surrounded by cylons, their paper-thin orbital defenses almost certainly destroyed.

Kara stood silently for what seemed hours as cylons paraded by, conquerors flaunting their might before their vanquished creators. And Kara counted. Twenty. Forty. A hundred. Two hundred. A thousand. _Fight 'em until we can't._ That's all she thought. Not once did she contemplate the odds. At no point did she stop to ponder the obvious problem of having no more than a handful of weapons capable of denting a cylon centurion, to say nothing of actually destroying one.

The hum of cylon raiders flying above provided a soundtrack for Kara's tally, but she never bothered to look up at any of them. The raiders were simple to deal with; they were untouchable in the air, but they would have to land to refuel sometime. Somewhere. _We'll find them and destroy them on the ground. There's no other option._

Kara felt her toes curling as some deeply buried part of her mind reflexively started working a Viper's pedals as she thought about the raiders. But she did her best to banish those thoughts. _The fact that the cylons made it to the surface means the _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ had to have been destroyed. The Old Man would never have let them get past him,_ she knew. _Lee might have made a strategic withdrawal to bide his time and wait for an opening to strike, but the Admiral never would have left. At least not in the old days._

That last thought reminded Kara that the Adamas were now an unknown to her. She hadn't spoken to the Old Man in weeks, and – except for the brief wireless call she assumed was cut off by the cylons – not to Lee since their final argument, when he practically exploded in rage when he found out she was resigning her commission and moving to the surface. Lee had branded it desertion, had screamed that if he was willing to stay – he who had never really wanted the military in the first place – then she had no right leaving. Her crime was unforgivable in his eyes, the breach between them permanent. _Gods, I hope he had the sense to run. Please be out there waiting for a chance to counter-strike._

The marching cylons started to fall out of ranks and into small squads, and Kara watched as Brother Cavill – _no, he's just a fracking cylon,_ she reminded herself – climbed several stairs onto a makeshift podium.

"Your leaders have surrendered," he announced. "Therefore, as no hostilities exist, you can rest assured that you will not be harmed."

Kara sneered at the machine's comforting assurances, though her stomach turned in disgust when she heard several men and women near her sigh with relief. _Fight 'em until we can't, people. There's no other option. Don't listen to a frakking lying word the thing says._

"In order to limit the chances of any misunderstandings or unfortunate disagreements, we will be instituting some simple rules."

_Of course you will,_ Kara thought angrily, infuriated that she had to stand there and listen to this; she knew what the cylons' rules would be before they said them.

"First, there will be a dusk to dawn curfew in effect," the cylon announced. "Second, we will immediately conduct a search of all homes in order to confiscate any weapons. Third, we will review your records to determine if there are any other weapons or dangerous materials that may have been… overlooked… in our initial search. Fourth, all news services are hereby shut down; there will be no reporting on anything without cylon approval. Fifth, any pending trials are hereby suspended until a new judicial system is put into place under the authority of cylon adjudicators. This new system will address any disagreements that arise either amongst yourselves or with the cylons. Finally, humans are hereby prohibited from gathering in groups larger than three, with special exemption made for members of immediate family."

_Members of family,_ Kara thought, feeling a flash of embarrassment when she realized that Sam was still propped up in bed, probably wondering where she was. She started to walk away, only to be immediately interdicted by a centurion. "I have to go check on my husband," she barked, trying to push past the machine. It stepped in front of her once again, frighteningly light on its feet. "Get the frak out of my way," she said, pushing as hard as she could against the centurion's chest, without result.

"Is there a problem?" a woman asked. Kara turned to face what she immediately recognized as a cylon. _Shelly Godfrey. The woman from Pegasus. The countless bodies in the Resurrection Ship. Frak her. Frak all of them._

"Get your frakking toaster out of my way," Kara commanded.

The cylon woman smiled indulgently, but did not make a move.

"I have to check on my husband. He's very sick," Kara explained, hating herself as she spoke, feeling as if she was giving in by saying so much as a single word to justify her wish to leave.

"Then you should go to him, of course." The cylon gestured with her hand, and the centurion immediately stepped aside.

Starbuck shot them both a withering glare, impressing neither, and then stormed away toward her tent. She arrived home to find Sam far worse than she had left him. He was dripping with sweat, his skin cold and clammy as his head lolled from side to side, his eyes trying to focus on her.

"Kara?" he asked. "Is that you?"

"I'm here," she assured him, bending over and wiping his brow. _Pneumonia my ass,_ she decided. _This is way worse than pneumonia._

"I had the weirdest dream," Sam muttered.

"Did you?" Kara asked, drawing comfort from the fact that Sam was still capable of speaking. _As long as he's talking, he's alive._

"Yeah, I dreamed the cylons were back," Sam said. He let out a small laugh that became a series of frightening coughs that wracked his body. Kara didn't miss the small red drops that started to form on Sam's hands as he finished coughing. _Blood in the lungs,_ Kara realized, feeling panic start to well up in her. _Oh, gods…_

"The cylons?" Kara asked, trying to get her husband talking again.

"Yeah, they just showed up out of the blue," he said.

Sam was slurring his speech slightly; Kara was pretty sure he hadn't been doing that just a few minutes earlier.

"Then there was this guy who came in looking for you," Sam continued.

"What guy?"

"A cylon," he explained. "He came in asking where Kara Thrace was. I thought it was weird because I could hear raiders and centurions, so I knew we were going to die. That was when I knew it was just a dream."

"How's that?" Kara asked.

"Well, there's no reason for a cylon to come by looking for you when they've already secured the camp."

"Yeah, that makes no sense at all," Kara agreed. She couldn't help but wonder if the cylon had been a delusion or if he had been real, but she was certain that it was a very important detail. "So what did he look like?" she asked.

Sam did not respond; he was out cold.

"Sam?" Kara asked. "Sam? Can you hear me?" She shook his shoulders, but he remained unconscious. Kara gained what comfort she could by reminding herself that his lungs were still working, wheezing air in and out. She checked his pulse, and though she was no doctor, she could tell that his heartbeat was still strong. She looked outside and saw groups of two and three people walking down the path between tents as cylon centurions stood sentry.

"I need to find medicine," she muttered to herself. "Someone somewhere can help me." She walked out, immediately feeling a machine's suspicious stare fall on her back. She ignored it and walked along, hoping to find Doctor Cottle. But after a minute she found someone better.

"Hey, Zarek," she called out, noting that most of the people skittered away when she raised her voice, seemingly afraid that her yelling might be considered a breach of decorum worthy of an execution.

"Starbuck," Zarek returned with a broad, ingratiating politician's smile.

"No one calls me that anymore," Kara said as she walked up, engaging in a token handshake. "I'm a civilian now."

"Okay, Kara," Zarek said.

She hated having him say her name, but there was nothing to be done about it. "I need medicine," she said.

"You seem healthy enough to me."

"It's for my husband," Kara explained. "For Sam."

"The remaining antibiotics have been strictly rationed," Zarek responded with a grim shrug. "I don't know why you're coming to me about this."

"Enough with the games," Kara replied. "You've been a huge player in the black market since… since your predecessor was killed."

"By Lee Adama," Zarek said, as if he knew that just mentioning the name would piss Kara off.

"I need medicine."

"So you told me. I can ask around and see if anyone has anything, maybe a couple of tablets here and there, but I can't make any promises."

"Thank you," Kara said through gritted teeth.

"I have to admit, though, I was surprised you came to me asking about medicine," he said.

"Is that so?" Kara asked, not missing the implication that Zarek had expected her to go to him about something else entirely.

"It is," he said with a nod.

He was turning away when Kara realized what Zarek had meant. "I'm in," she told him.

"Then I'll be in touch, Kara."

"Call me Starbuck," she replied, a burst of adrenaline making her fee more alive than she had in a year. "No one calls me Kara anymore."

She walked back to her tent as quickly as she could, counting the ways in which she'd been stupid not to realize that Tom Zarek was already well into the planning stages of leading a resistance against the cylon occupation. _He's a natural leader, and he's probably the only one on the planet who's had experience leading violent opposition to a militarily superior occupying force. When he saw me, he was probably thinking I'd already put two and two together and was going to enlist._

When she reached her tent, she found two cylon centurions standing outside the entrance. _What the hell…_ She ran toward her home, grateful that neither of the centurions moved to stop her. She pulled the flap aside and settled her eyes on her husband, who was weakly sipping at a small cup while two cylons stood by the bedside.

"What the frak are you doing?" Starbuck asked angrily, her furious stare boring into the eyes of a blonde female that she was willing to guess was the same one she had encountered not too much earlier. The other one – another one that looked like Brother Cavill – remained focused on Sam.

"We're giving him medicine," the cylon woman explained.

"Medicine?"

"Yes. You told me your husband is ill, so we came here to attend to him."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

"If we wanted you all dead, we could have just nuked the colony from orbit," the male pointed out.

"So now you're giving us medicine," Starbuck said, crossing her arms defiantly, wishing she had a pistol. _Or a Viper._ She noticed that her toes were curling again, but she did not stop herself this time.

"We don't have to be the enemy," the woman explained with an ingratiating smile. "We only came here in peace."

"Of course you did," Starbuck replied. _Fight 'em until we can't,_ she reminded herself. _It doesn't matter whether they treat Sam or not. It doesn't matter whether fighting them will get me killed or not. The plan is simple – no retreat, no surrender, no compromise. Fight 'em until we can't._

_Fin_


End file.
